Facts about Eye
Eye History
There have been Palaeolithic, Mesolithic, Neolithic and Bronze Age finds in and around Eye but the earliest evidence of settlement in the town dates from the Roman period and includes buildings and coins dated circa 365. A large Anglo-Saxon cemetery including many urned cremations and some furnished inhumations, in use during the 6th century, was excavated near the Waterloo Plantation, Eye, in 1818. In 1781 some labourers unearthed a lead box by the river at Clint Farm in Eye, 3 miles south of Scole and 2 miles south-west of Hoxne.
Before the Norman Conquest, Eye was one of the numerous holdings of Edric of Laxfield, a wealthy and influential Saxon and the third largest landholder in Suffolk. After the Norman Conquest, the importance of the town was firmly established in the region when the Honour of Eye was granted to William Malet, a Norman lord, and continued to be held by royal or noble families until 1823.
General Info
Eye is a small market town in the north of the English county of Suffolk, about 4 miles south of Diss, 17 1⁄2 miles north of Ipswich and 23 miles south-west of Norwich. It lies close to the River Waveney, which forms the border with Norfolk, and it is on the River Dove. Eye is twinned with the town of Pouzauges in the Vendée department of France. The town of Eye derives its name from the Old English word for “island, land by water”.
